HER DATA | Exhibition

Her Data | Exhibition

Duration: 23 September – 14 October 2021
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Sunday: 15:00 – 21:00. Closed on Mondays.
Location: Romantso, Anaxagora 3 – Athens
Participating Artists: Eli Cortiñas (ES/DE), Maria Mavropoulou (GR), Mimi Ọnụọha (NG/USA), Paola Palavidi (GR)
Curated by: Katerina Gkoutziouli & Foteini Vergidou

Have you ever wondered why Siri, Alexa and Cortana are given female voices and names? How do machines see women? Can machines perceive diversity?

The exhibition Her Data looks into the role of data and algorithms in the current age of artificial intelligence through the female perspective. It also explores female and diverse representationin the context of our fast-paced consumption of technology. Stereotypes, different types of bias and taboos seem to come back stronger in the digital sphere, reproducing outdated worldviews, marginalising certain social groups and discriminating between communities.

Four female artists present different stories of how dominant technological narratives influence the way we experience our identities and the world, through social media, search engines and AI applications. Their works raise questions about the use of our data from tech-giants and they invite us to look deeper at the design of current technological systems, exposing how they work and what worldviews they propagate.

In a male dominated tech-industry, where discrimination persists, diversity is at stake. Global statistics show that the tech and AI industry is dominated by males, primarily white, excluding women and diverse communities from positions of power. This imbalance in the industry inevitably brings forward the questions: who designs these technologies and for whom. The growing market of machine learning and the widespread use of pattern recognition and classification algorithms in everyday life further amplify the concerns about the reproduction of social inequity through our technological systems. The exhibition brings alternative perspectives on our current relationship with technologies by exploring the aesthetics, the power structures and the social issues that emerge.

Maria Mavropoulou investigates how algorithms classify and see women according to their race, gender, and age through personalised ads, while Mimi Ọnụọha highlights the lack of cultural diversity in the ways data is organised and classified by Google search algorithms raising questions about power, community and identity. Eli Cortiñas delves into the cinematic close-up to underline the history of female representation in the film industry, mass media and artificial intelligence. Paola Palavidi creates a speculative scenario of human and machine coexistence hinting at the process of domestication of technology and the massive -mostly useless- volume of data and information we produce.

The exhibition highlights the need for inclusive technologies and turns the focus on how the technologies we use daily might affect our identities and our way of thinking. Through films, painting, installations and a “research salon” with books and fanzines from international female thinkers, writers, scientists and engineers, Her Data invites us to reconsider our symbiotic relationship with machines and reimagine our collective future.

*The works by Maria Mavropoulou and Paola Palavidi are new commissions.

CREDITS

Exhibition Design: Martha Giannakopoulou | if_untitled architects
Art Direction: Korina Gallika
Audiovisual Design: Michalis Antonopoulos, Makis Faros
Press & Publicity: Yorgos Katsonis
Art Mediator: Lydia Panagou

The exhibition is realised with the support of NEON Organization for Culture and Development and Bios-Romantso.